I thought it might be useful for us to start putting some "herp-centric" photo gear reviews up here. Sure there are lots of reviews of particular lenses, bags, tripods, etc., online but how many of them are written by herpers with field herp photography in mind? None so far....but we can change that.

We should try to follow a few ground rules:

1. Only review gear you own and have used (i.e. no second hand reports)

2. Let's only have one review thread for each piece of gear. You can add your own reviews as reply in the original review.

3. Let's try to keep the reviews (and replies) on topic.

4. Write "REVIEW - Sony Alpha HVL-F20AM Flash" (or whatever you are reviewing) in the subject line so they are easy to find.

5. Make sure you know the correct name/model number so others can find more about it

6. Please feel free to review home made rigs, modifications, etc, but tell us how you made them.

7. Remember that sample photos are useful, but make sure you are showing a photo that provides information about the qualities of the piece of gear. Just putting in 10 photos you took with a lens doesn't necessarily tell us anything and just burns bandwidth. Explain what the photo is intended to show and if it doesn't add anything...why put it there?

8. Make your review informative. Saying "I have this piece of gear and it rocks" doesn't tell us anything. What's good? What's bad?

9. Make the review herper-centric. I can read a ton of reviews about most of the gear we use, but it doesn't give me herp specific information. We want to know how your gear works for field herp photography.

* Gear should be something that is currently on the market I.E. sold as new.

I don't think it would make much sense reviewing something with limited availability in the 'used' market.

BTW, I have a Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM APO Macro enroute to me and while it may be a bit long for the big snakes, I'll do a small review on it after 2 weeks or so of using it on the smaller herp stuff.

* Gear should be something that is currently on the market I.E. sold as new.

I don't think it would make much sense reviewing something with limited availability in the 'used' market.

I think I disagree with you a bit on this one Owen. A lot of us have to be budget conscious when choosing gear, or need something that is no longer made, and there is some really fantastic discontinued stuff out there. (For some reason the camera manufacturers don’t always seem to have herp photographers at the top of their minds when they design new equipment ). With the ready availability of nearly anything on sites like ebay, I don’t see why we need to limit it to equipment that is available new.

* Gear should be something that is currently on the market I.E. sold as new.

I don't think it would make much sense reviewing something with limited availability in the 'used' market.

I think I disagree with you a bit on this one Owen. A lot of us have to be budget conscious when choosing gear, or need something that is no longer made, and there is some really fantastic discontinued stuff out there. (For some reason the camera manufacturers don’t always seem to have herp photographers at the top of their minds when they design new equipment ). With the ready availability of nearly anything on sites like ebay, I don’t see why we need to limit it to equipment that is available new.

* Gear should be something that is currently on the market I.E. sold as new.

I don't think it would make much sense reviewing something with limited availability in the 'used' market.

I think I disagree with you a bit on this one Owen. A lot of us have to be budget conscious when choosing gear, or need something that is no longer made, and there is some really fantastic discontinued stuff out there. (For some reason the camera manufacturers don’t always seem to have herp photographers at the top of their minds when they design new equipment ). With the ready availability of nearly anything on sites like ebay, I don’t see why we need to limit it to equipment that is available new.

While I agree that there is some discontinued stuff that is really nice, it seems to me, that unless it is commonly available in the marketplace, it doesn't make much sense to review it. A couple cases in point as it applies to my Sony/Minolta gear:

Konica Minolta 1200 Ringflash with MFC-1000 flash controller. New, these were about $500. They're rare and now go for near $1000 when found. I won't be reviewing mine. The Minolta 200mm f4 Macro was selling for $900 new in 2005 and now sells for between $2000 and $3000. These are probably the 2 products that Sony didn't carry over after purchasing KM that would have herp photography use.

Point and shoots are usually considered disposable and you can get good pictures with a sub $100 camera (Richard Porter... seen your stuff with the $89 Samsung ). The +/-$200 cameras are really capable of producing excellent images until they die. No point in reviewing a 3 year old Panasonic FZ-18 since they're 3 generations past that.

Where I can maybe see some use is reviewing mid range used marker dslr's Something like the Canon 30D or 40D that are pretty good, but just lacking high MP counts, video, etc... So here, I will agree, but for the most part

Now DIY stuff could also be a cool review with how to build instructions.

Great idea. I was looking for these kinds of reviews and didn't find any - never thought to order others to do it for me..

I got the ball rolling with a review of the Panasonic FZ150. Also, I think reviewing the FZ18 ISN'T a waste of time, as many people will say: "Well, if the FZ18 was great for herping, perhaps the latest FZ model will be even better." Then they will look up some reviews of the current FZ150 and make their decision. Now, if it's a twenty year old film camera I can't see a point.

Great idea. I'd like to see these become a part of the Herp Nation Blogosphere, with the conversation about a given review posted here on this forum. So I could add these reviews to the Herp Nation blog, then post it here for discussion. Our blogs are generating enormous interest. For example, our the website is up 200% from just a month ago. Part of this is the new "Dan Krull Show" on the radio side of things, but also the blogs.

On that note, we would also have the blogger(s) on the "DKS" to discuss the review, etc. Lets do this! Who's in? Anyone interested, shoot me an email [email protected]

I'm all for posting reviews of discontinued products - particularly those that are readily available. I've been in the photography industry for a while - I do contract work and currently make my entire income off of photography related products, services, and affiliations. I don't have a single piece of major equipment (cameras, lenses, tripods, filters, extension tubes, teleconverters, flash) that I've bought new (and I work for a company that has a retail operation and retail affiliates, so I could get good deals on new products if I wanted). Buying used has allowed me to save at least several thousand dollars, and probably close to 40% off the gear I own. Sometimes discontinued products are better than the products that replace them (or at least a much better value). So I think they should be included.

Can I post links to reviews I've done for other sites or on my personal site? Recopying the content here would be a pain, it would drive traffic away from the original site, and in some cases, could violate any rights I've given to the site holder. But reposting would at least link my face to the review, so if FHF folks had questions I could answer them. I can include the herp-centric info in the forum post as a supplement to previously published reviews. Let me know what you think!

Hey Scott,
What ever happened to the gear review we talked about last year, vertical file? We should poll a gear corner/forum and see what he interest would be, there is plenty of cross over in gear and new tech popping up all the time.